Validation of Toxicogenomic Technologies: A Workshop Summary (2006)

The emergence of toxicogenomics technologies hold much promise for helping scientists better understand the effects of exposures to chemicals in the environment. Toxicogenomic technologies enable researchers to study the genes expressed and the proteins and metabolites produced in response to a particular exposure. This report summarizes a recent National Research Council workshop on the validation of toxicogenomic technologies that focused on technical aspects of validation including experimental design, reproducibility, and the statistical and bioinformatics processing of toxicogenomic data. Workshop presentations and discussions among participants are summarized and address technical validation strategies and issues as well as challenges associated with the biological validation of these technologies.